A STARTLED HORSE.
Expressions of the Emotions,
page 130.
The actions of a horse when much startled are highly expressive. One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling-machine, covered by a tarpaulin, and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the raising of the head; nor, if any sound had proceeded from it, could the sound have been more distinctly heard. His eyes and ears were directed intently forward; and I could feel through the saddle the palpitations of his heart. With red, dilated nostrils he snorted violently, and, whirling round, would have dashed off at full speed, had I not prevented him. The distention of the nostrils is not for the sake of scenting the source of danger, for, when a horse smells carefully at any object and is not alarmed, he does not dilate his nostrils. Owing to the presence of a valve in the throat, a horse when panting does not breathe through his open mouth, but through his nostrils; and these consequently have become endowed with great powers of expansion. This expansion of the nostrils, as well as the snorting, and the palpitations of the heart, are actions which have become firmly associated during a long series of generations with the emotion of terror; for terror has habitually led the horse to the most violent exertion in dashing away at full speed from the cause of danger.